The present invention relates to a household electric appliance having an orifice closed by a plug, or stopper, and relates more particularly to an appliance having detection means providing assurance that opening, or removal, of the plug or the stopper has been effected by the user.
It is a common occurrence in the field of household electric appliances for the user to be required to regularly perform a maintenance operation, such as a scale removal operation, in order to assure that the appliance would have a long useful life. Thus, for ironing appliances provided with a tank for the generation of steam under pressure, it is recommended to regularly rinse the steam-generating tank with large quantities of water, for example after every ten refillings of the reservoir, in order to remove mineral deposits. Such a regular rinsing of the tank serves to prevent the deposits from accumulating in an unduly large quantity in the tank and from thus being transported by the steam flow into the iron, where the deposits would impair the operation of the iron over a period of time.
However, applicant has recognized that, in practice, the user often forgets to regularly perform this maintenance operation, to the detriment of the useful life of the appliance. In order to overcome this drawback, it is known to provide on the iron a maintenance warning light that is activated automatically, for example after a cumulative operating time of the appliance, in order to alert the user to the necessity of performing the maintenance operation. In addition, a button is provided on the appliance to turn off the warning light and reinitialize its activation cycle after the user has performed the maintenance.
However, despite the presence of this indicator, certain users still fail to perform the maintenance operation, but will depress the maintenance indicator reinitialization button without having actually performed the maintenance operation.